/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.apache.log4j.spi;

/**
 * A string based interface to configure package components.
 * 
 * @author Ceki G&uuml;lc&uuml;
 * @author Anders Kristensen
 * @since 0.8.1
 */
public interface OptionHandler {

	/**
	 * Activate the options that were previously set with calls to option
	 * setters.
	 * 
	 * <p>
	 * This allows to defer activiation of the options until all options have
	 * been set. This is required for components which have related options that
	 * remain ambigous until all are set.
	 * 
	 * <p>
	 * For example, the FileAppender has the
	 * {@link org.apache.log4j.FileAppender#setFile File} and
	 * {@link org.apache.log4j.FileAppender#setAppend Append} options both of
	 * which are ambigous until the other is also set.
	 */
	void activateOptions();

	/**
	 * Return list of strings that the OptionHandler instance recognizes.
	 * 
	 * @deprecated We now use JavaBeans style getters/setters.
	 */
	// String[] getOptionStrings();
	/**
	 * Set <code>option</code> to <code>value</code>.
	 * 
	 * <p>
	 * The handling of each option depends on the OptionHandler instance. Some
	 * options may become active immediately whereas other may be activated only
	 * when {@link #activateOptions} is called.
	 * 
	 * @deprecated We now use JavaBeans style getters/setters.
	 */
	// void setOption(String option, String value);
}
